They could tell me nothing at Wyncomb Farm.

Stephen Whitelaw was alone in the kitchen smoking his pipe by a great fire.

He hadn't been out all day, he told me, and none of his people had seen or heard anything out of the common.

As to any harm having come to Mrs.Holbrook by the river-bank, he said he didn't think that was possible, for his men had been at work in the fields near the river all the afternoon, and must have seen or heard if there had been anything wrong.

There was some kind of comfort in this, and I left the farm with my mind a little lighter than it had been when I went in there.